‘Wit’ here stands for wisdom. Brevity is indeed the soul of wit because a short and pity statement can convey a thought much quicker than a long sermon preached. This was the advice given by Polonius to his son in William Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet. Surprisingly, Polonius himself did not follow his own advice. All his speeches were long and beside the point. But if we follow this dictum, we can save a lot of time and effort in conveying our thoughts to others. We must be brief and to point if we want others to pay attention to what we say and write. For example, if the answer to a question needs just two pages, it is no use repeating ourselves and beating about the bush to write it in four to five pages. The examiner may lose interest in what he reads and it may cost us heavily. So, we must learn to compress our thoughts and be brief and to the point in whatever we say and write. Words, like money, must be economically used.
No comments:
Post a Comment